


ripping wings off of butterflies

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:19:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the boy that had been crouched over him just a few seconds previous gives him a disconcerted look as he takes a few leisurely steps backward, putting distance between them.</p><p>now, of course, because tyler lives in the neighborhood he does (especially because he’s right next door), he knows about joshua dun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. playing god

**Author's Note:**

> this story will probably break your heart.  
> it wasn't originally intended to be that way, but y'know, shit happens.
> 
> there's only gonna be two or three chapters, but they're fairly sad.  
> title is from paramore's brick by boring brick.
> 
> also, some warnings for child abuse.

“zack, go get the ball, you’re the one who kicked it!”

“tyler, you’re older, you go get it!”

tyler visibly deflates, nervously casting a glance over at the fence that separated their backyard from their neighbors’. “whatever,” he huffs, as petulant as a ten-year-old can be, scuffing his shoe through the grass. “next time, you have to go get it.”

zack rolls his eyes.

tyler approaches the fence that towers far above his head. he pushes himself up on his tippy-toes, balancing as he tries to peer over the top, but he’s still about seven or eight inches short and he flops back down to the ground, admitting defeat. “i can’t see anything!” he crows at his brother over his shoulder, throwing his head back to look at the top of the pointed fence that separates him from the ball his brother stupidly kicked over.

“try the tree,” zack calls back.

tyler cocks a head toward the oak tree perched in his backyard, magnificent branches leaned all-too-conveniently over the fence. a direct way into the neighbor’s backyard, if he’s careful enough; it’d be easier to go over to their house and ask kindly for the ball back, of course, but the thrall of excitement calls to him more than playing anything safe.

“stay here,” tyler shouts, bounding his way over to the large tree. he props his tiny hands up around the base, breathing in heavily through his nose as he clambers up the stump, maneuvering to the first branch with a slight amount of difficulty and the air of familiarity from all the times him and his siblings tackled climbing the tree.

he crouches on said branch and climbs up a little higher until he’s level with the fence; he scrambles down the limb of the tree and manages to clutch onto the wooden fence, hoisting himself up and over.

distantly, tyler can hear zack cheering as he shimmies his way over the fence. he lowers himself, clutching onto the top of balance with quaking fingers – unfortunately, one of his feet slips as he’s trying to make his way safely to the ground, and he falls the rest of the distance, landing harshly on his back.

stunned, he’s unable to do anything other than make a few noises of pained discomfort, sprawled on the ground and blinking up at the sky, slowly spinning in a circle.

a mop of brown hair and wide, scared eyes suddenly appears in tyler’s line of sight as he’s catching his breath, and he shouts, scrambling to sit up to focus on the intruder.

the boy that had been crouched over him just a few seconds previous gives him a disconcerted look as he takes a few leisurely steps backward, putting distance between them.

now, of course, because tyler lives in the neighborhood he does (especially because he’s right next door), he knows about joshua dun.

joshua dun, who’s sporting a large yellowing bruise on one cheek and sometimes goes to tyler’s church on sunday mornings and who’s backyard tyler has just broken into to retrieve his dumb soccer ball. joshua dun, who is barely older than tyler himself, who is homeschooled and never allowed out of the house and screamed at and kicked around on a daily basis by his drunkard of a father because his mother ditched him there when they divorced and took his three siblings with her.

tyler knows about it all, no matter how hard his parents try to hide it from him. the cops have been over at josh’s house numerous times when the screaming gets too loud, sirens blaring and flashing blue-red-blue outside tyler’s window when he’s trying to sleep. after a while, he learns to ignore it, because that’s the way things work in this world. he understands that, even if he’s just ten, people mind their own business and they don’t question why, exactly, they don’t step in for josh when his father wails on him. he’s not quiet about it, and he’s certainly not discreet.

“you’re bleeding,” josh says, pointing at a scrape just under tyler’s knee, and when he looks, he surely is, but it’s nothing compared to the bruise tyler faintly sees under the hem of josh’s shirt collar when he moves.

“oh,” tyler mutters, dumbly; he brings a finger down and wipes away the blood, but it rushes back to the surface with more intensity than before.

“come on,” josh says as he stands up a little straighter, gesturing to his house behind him. “d’you want a band-aid?”

tyler doesn’t really think he needs one, but he nods anyways as he pushes himself to his feet, eager to see what goes on behind closed doors at josh’s house.

josh pads up to the porch and slides open a glass door, ushering tyler inside to his living room. right off the bat, it reeks of something foreign and unknown; he shrinks back, suddenly scared and unwilling to move in any further, bumping into josh’s shoulder.

his eyebrows knit together in confusion, and tyler scrambles away, unaware of what exactly to do with himself.

josh says nothing. he heads deeper into the house, down a hallway and to the right; tyler follows a few steps behind, wide eyes taking in everything out of the ordinary. for the most part, what he can see is dirty; the floor is stained with mysterious substances, and some pieces of furniture appear broken. there’s a television nestled in the corner next to a filthy-looking couch, tiny with the screen cracked in various spots.

the coffee table is littered with empty, uncapped bottles. one of them is broken, and shards of glass lay on the floor, next to a weird patch of faded red stained into the carpet.

he moves a little quicker, scampering into the room josh has disappeared into; a bathroom. he’s stood up on his tip-toes as he rummages around in the cabinet, pulling out a white box that brandishes the logo of band-aids.

he fishes one out of the box and hands it casually over to tyler.

“um, thanks,” he squeaks as he peels the wrapper open. he sticks it to a finger and crouches over his knee, splaying it over his injury that’s already stopped bleeding. he really didn’t need one in the first place, and now he’s stuck in this unfamiliar house with a boy that’s very obviously beaten on a regular basis.

he swallows nervously, shifting around. josh gives him a curious look as he steps around him, moving almost as if to leave the room.

before he can move even a step outside, his entire body freezes up.

tyler begins to ask why they aren’t leaving, but his words die in his throat when he can very faintly hear the sound of a door slamming somewhere off in the distance. normally, tyler wouldn’t think too much of it, but he’s trapped in the house of an abusive alcoholic, watching as josh visibly pales and shakes in front of him. he whips around, eyes wide and horrified, and he whispers, “you gotta leave. _now_.”

“okay,” tyler mumbles, holding josh’s terrified gaze; he opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but his jaw slams shut and his eyes immediately move to the direction of sound somewhere in the house, and then at the open door of the bathroom.

footsteps are tromping through the house, closer than before, and someone is shouting josh’s name. someone who sounds large and angry, and tyler has suddenly never been more scared in his entire life.

“what do we do?” he hisses, and he can almost see the gears turning in josh’s head; he sets his jaw, peering out down the hallway before he’s stumbling backwards, grasping at tyler’s wrist.

tyler stares at josh’s fingers gripping around his hand for a second before he’s being tugged out of the bathroom. his heart stops working for a good second, skipping a beat as he trips after josh pulling him toward the sliding glass door. he yanks it open and shoves tyler outside, closing it as quietly as possible behind them.

he briefly wonders if he should ask what on earth is going on, but josh has both of his hands on his shoulders, twisting him around and steering him toward the fence. tyler stares questioningly as josh grits his teeth, stooping to his knees in the dirt and pressing on a splintered part of the wood in the fence. “there’s a loose panel,” he mumbles, and just as he says, a part of the fence swings to the side underneath his hands. there’s a gap more than big enough for tyler to squeeze himself through into his backyard.

he doesn’t want to know how josh knows about the loose panel. instead, he shakes his head an drops to his knees disbelievingly, shimmying his way through, turning around to face josh once he’s in the safety of his own backyard.

josh looks at him expectantly as he waits for him to say something, still holding the fence apart, but his eyes glance to the side, as if he’s looking for someone.

“thanks,” tyler whispers, and he swears josh’s cheeks glow pink right before he closes the gap, severing their connection.

it’s not until he’s pulled himself to his feet and leaned over to brush off the dirt on his shorts that he realizes he left his stupid soccer ball in josh’s backyard. he also realizes that he never even told josh his name.

he immediately scrambles over to zack and pushes him all the way to their backdoor, ignoring his complaints of leaving the ball and questions of why he appeared through a hole in the fence with another boy behind him.

the sounds of screaming are louder than they've ever been that night, when tyler is tucked safely away in his bed, and he can’t help but think that it’s all his fault because of a soccer ball. he also hopes for the sirens to come and flash outside his window, for josh’s sake, but they never do, and tyler falls asleep as the shouting and yelling fades into the background.


	2. to be the only one who's holy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “i really gotta go,” josh says as he looks into his backyard, turning his head to look at tyler quietly. “my dad’s gonna be home soon and i’m not s’posed to be outside.”
> 
> “okay,” tyler sighs, but he forces a smile onto his face and leans in toward josh. “come out tomorrow?”

the next time he sees josh, it’s two days later and he’s in his backyard with zack.

they’re still missing their soccer ball, as tyler’s absolutely terrified of going anywhere near their fence, so they have a baseball this time and they’re focused on tossing it back and forth.

“i wanna play soccer,” zack complains, giving him a pointed look, as if blaming tyler for not retrieving the ball like he’d been assigned to do in the first place.

“sorry,” tyler replies, even if he’s not really not, throwing the ball in his hand back at zack.

except, he’s not paying attention, and the baseball thuds firmly against his chest, hard enough to knock all the air out of his lungs.

he gives tyler the dirtiest look he can while trying to hold back tears, and spins around on his heel, heading toward the backdoor without another glance in his brother’s direction.

tyler huffs at his feet, kicking the grass stubbornly before retrieving the ball.

he resorts to bouncing it off the fence while standing a reasonable distance away and catching it. he doesn’t know how long he’s standing there, arm moving constantly as he tries to keep himself occupied, before the loose panel in the fence begins to move.

he stares at in horror as it shuffles around, seemingly by itself. or by a ghost.

his mom tells him ghosts aren’t real, but this panel says otherwise. it’s completely moving by itself.

he’s near on the verge of running back to his house in a screaming, panicked frenzy, before a head of curly brown hair pokes its way through the gap.

“hi,” says josh, holding the panel open.

“hi,” tyler echoes. he picks up his baseball and moves closer to the fence, plopping himself down across from josh.

surprisingly, he’s holding something black and white in his hands. with a smile, he thrusts it out toward tyler, and tyler grins before realizing his soccer ball is completely flat.

he stares at it, questioningly, for a good second, and josh moves his hands, pushing it into tyler’s lap. “sorry it’s flat,” he whispers, looking truly contrite. “my dad – my dad popped it. i can get you a new one, if you want.”

“it’s okay,” tyler responds immediately, dropping the baseball on top of his useless soccer ball. he gives josh another look, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary alongside the almost-gone bruise on his cheek that tyler saw a few days ago.

well, except for the giant split down the middle of josh’s lip that his tongue keeps dragging across. he winces, every time, and tyler wonders why he keeps licking it if it hurts that bad.

“what happened to your lip?” tyler asks, pointing, even if he has a pretty good idea what caused it.

“oh, nothing, i tripped,” josh yelps, eyes widening as his hand flies up to cover his mouth. “i’m really clumsy. i fell down the stairs.”

more like got pushed down the stairs, but tyler nods and moves on, touching his baseball. “do you play?”

josh’s eyes move down to the ball, longingly, before he’s grudgingly shaking his head. “no. ‘m not allowed to.”

“d’you _wanna_ play?”

he’s aware of how josh could probably get in trouble for going behind his father’s back, but the look in his eyes whenever he looks at the baseball makes him ask, anyways.

josh almost says yes, too, but he catches himself and forces himself to move backwards a little ways. “i really can’t. i’m sorry.”

“it’s okay,” tyler says again, even if he’s disappointed. his mom raised him to be polite and he really, _really_ wants to be this boy’s friend, and she says being polite is the best way to make friends. “i’m tyler, by the way.”

josh wrinkles his nose, beaming, and he sticks the hand that’s not holding the panel back out toward him. “i’m josh,” he chirps, and tyler grins back, taking his hand and shaking it once before returning it back to his lap.

tyler holds back on saying _yes, i knows everyone knows who you are_ , because that might weird josh out and being weird definitely doesn’t make friends.

they talk for a while longer about school (“what school do you go to?” tyler asked, and josh had responded by looking utterly broken and whispering, “i’m homeschooled.”) and friends (“do you have any friends, then?” he’d followed up, and josh had groaned, “no, i’m not really allowed to talk to people.” tyler had then immediately told him that he was now his friend, and the look on his face could’ve rivaled the brightness of the sun.) and family (“i have two brothers and a sister,” tyler announced, after a moment, and josh nodded solemnly before declaring, “my dad says my mom hated me and that’s why she took my brothers and sisters away from me. tyler didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t.).

tyler passes the ball back and forth between his hands, content to keep talking to the mystery raveled up and that made one joshua dun, but as time progressed, he kept looking over his shoulder at his house, his posture growing more and more tense.

“i really gotta go,” josh says as he looks into his backyard, turning his head to look at tyler quietly. “my dad’s gonna be home soon and i’m not s’posed to be outside.”

“okay,” tyler sighs, but he forces a smile onto his face and leans in toward josh. “come out tomorrow?”

josh smiles, despite himself, and he nods quickly. “sure –“

“joshua!”

josh goes white as a sheet, the smile immediately dripping from his face and contorting into one of unbridled fear, his fingers clutching tightly against the wood of the fencing. “oh, no, no, _no_ ,” he whispers, glancing behind him momentarily before his head twists around, eyes flickering all over tyler’s face. “i gotta go – oh, no, i’m sorry, tyler –“

“why are you sorry?” tyler asks, hand reaching out to grab josh’s wrist; he scrambles away from the fence before he can be touched and the panel slides back into place with a dull _thud_ that echoes hollowly inside tyler’s chest.

the wood grazes against tyler’s fingertips; he presses his hand to it, dumbly, staring at the spot where josh had been just mere seconds ago.

that’s when the yelling starts.

josh’s father is loud and drunk and angry as he screams incoherently at his son.

tyler doesn’t catch any of the words he says, at first, but he does hear the crying, immediate and broken.

the crying of a ten year old who deserved more than a mother who abandoned him and a father who has beat him nearly to death on more than one occasion.

the heart-wrenching, guttural sobs of a ten year old as he begs forgiveness, crying his throat hoarse; the sound is drowned out by his father’s voice, once again, screaming _you never should’ve been born, joshua, you were a fucking accident_!

_you were an accident_ , he repeats twice, and tyler sits in shocked silence, hand still against the wood of the fence as he takes it all in.

josh is crying and he’s begging and he’s saying he’s sorry and his father is shouting _shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up do you hear me you worthless piece of shit you waste of space you never should’ve been born you were an accident i swear to god i could kill you_ –

a loud sound reverberates throughout all of the commotion, and although it’s never happened to him, tyler knows from movies and tv shows and everything else that glorifies abuse that josh has been hit. _hard_.

silence.

complete, utter silence.

and the screaming begins again.

his father is yelling and josh is sobbing his eyes out and still trying to say he’s sorry through his tears, and there’s the clacking of a glass door sliding open over its track.

tyler’s heart thuds rapid-fire as the door slams shut, dragging josh into the unforgiving clutches of somewhere tyler can’t see. there’s no way he could possibly know what happens to josh now.

even though that door is sealed shut, the walls are thin and tyler can still hear josh screaming. he can still hear his father shoving insults down his throat and he swears he can still hear josh being beat.

bile rises in his throat and tears gather in the corner of his eyes and he forces himself to his feet, stumbling away from the broken panel of the fence that seals off josh’s fate from his. the baseball and the flat soccer ball tumble out of his lap and hit the ground behind him.

he runs as fast as he can into his own house; his mother is standing in the kitchen, looking down with surprise as her eldest child crashes into her legs, sobbing his little heart out.

she crouches down next to him, pulling him closer as she looks him over with worry. “tyler, what’s the matter?” she asks as she smoothes out his hair with a hand, brushing away his wet tears with the other.

the words bubble out of his throat before he can make his thoughts comprehensive as he sobs into his mother’s neck, fingers clutching at her shirt. “josh – josh is _hurt_ , mama, he’s gonna kill him, he said he was gonna kill him, i heard it all, you gotta help him, he’s gonna kill him –“

“tyler, honey, i can’t understand you,” she shushes him and he swallows harshly, sniffling into her shoulder. “what about josh?”

“his d-d-dad saw us t-talking and he s-said h-he was g-gonna k-kill him, you g-gotta help h-him –“

his mothers’ face hardens. her eyes are cold as she sets tyler on the floor. “i’ll be right back, honey,” she tells him, and he sniffles, rubbing at his face with his hand. “okay? stay here with zack and maddy and jay. i’ll go check on josh and see to it that he’s alright.”

tyler doubts it, but he nods fervently and follows her all the way to the front door. it slams in his face and he stares it helplessly – he’s still standing there, two minutes later, when zack approaches him and bumps against his shoulder.

“what are you doing?” he questions, and tyler looks at him, wet tears still glimmering in his eyes.

“nothing. c’mon, let’s go play video games.”


	3. one more spoon of cough syrup now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tyler watches as one by one, the police cars leave, followed by the wailing ambulance and the sirens flashing blue-red-blue all the way down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: major for child abuse, and there's a description of a panic attack at the very end of the chapter.
> 
> one more after this.

the sirens are louder than they’ve ever been.

tyler tries to keep his focus on his mario character bouncing around on the screen next to zach’s luigi, but his fingers keep tightening around his controller anxiously, his eyes skittering to the window every three seconds.

after zach beats him for the second time in a row, he sets his controller down on the floor despite his brother complaining that he’s _not done playing yet_ , and he stands on his tip-toes next to the windowsill to watch the police cars lined up outside on the curb.

police cars and an ambulance. more commotion than usual.

he can’t see much of anything, but he does see his mother standing outside, talking to a man in blue.

tyler watches as one by one, the police cars leave, followed by the wailing ambulance and the sirens flashing blue-red-blue all the way down the street.

“what’s that all about?” zack asks, and tyler plops himself down from the windowsill, flopping down on the ground next to his brother.

“no idea,” tyler replies, settling his controller in his lap to return playing the game, even though he has a pretty good one.

 

+

 

tyler is terrified of the fence.

he’s terrified because he hasn’t seen josh since the ‘incident’, as his mind has so fondly taken to dubbing it as, and that was three weeks ago.

he asks his mother and she says that josh is fine. always fine, never better or worse. josh is fine, fine, _fine_.

he asks his father and he says to ask his mother.

tyler is terrified of the fence because the fence is ominous and scary and dark and tyler knows absolutely, positively nothing about it aside from the fact that the fence helped to take josh away.

if only zack hadn’t kicked their soccer ball over the stupid fence.

it’s been eating at his mind for weeks. was it his fault josh had disappeared? he supposes it partially was, because he’d snuck into josh’s backyard in the first place and talked to him through the loose panel in the fence even though he knew very well josh wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone.

he tells his mother this once over breakfast, and she gives him the saddest look and tells him that he has an ‘overactive imagination’ and that he ‘needs to stop worrying about it’ because ‘josh is fine’.

josh is fine.

isn’t he?

he asks his friends at school and he asks his teachers.

his friends ignore him and complain that he asks too many questions; his teachers tell him the same thing his mother does. josh is _fine_ , tyler, don’t _worry_ about it.

but he worries. he worries more than any ten year old should about anything.

tyler slides open his glass door, eyeing the fence from the safety of his house. he’d tried hard to get zack to come outside to play with him, just to see if he could see josh through the fence, but he’d refused because he wanted to play mario as player one _without_ tyler so he didn’t have to be luigi.

whatever. tyler was a big boy, now, he’s perfectly capable of being outside by himself.

“honey, come inside or go out,” his mother reprimands from the living room. “the ac is on.”

he closes the door behind him and he creeps outside, keeping distance between himself on the fence as he stares at the cracked panel in the fence that started the entire unsightly mess.

he stares and he wills the paneling to slide apart and reveal josh, in some magical way. his mother used to tell him a story, when he was little, about how the big oak tree in their backyard was magic – she’d tell him if he sat underneath the tree and he wished really hard, his wish would come true.

mostly, he’d wish for ice cream, and he never got any. his mother stopped telling him the story when he grew older, and he stopped believing in magic because magic was for little kids, like jay and maddy.

right?

right.

he slinks across the grass anyways and stares up into the tree’s branches, reaching high up into the sky.

“i don’t believe in magic,” tyler tells the tree.

he plops down underneath the tree and tilts his chin up. “but if you make josh okay,” he whispers, “i guess i could believe in magic.”

he leans up against the trunk and he waits, looking as intensely at the loose panel as possible, but josh never shows up. tyler sighs and goes inside and decides that magic is definitely for little kids.

 

+

 

magic is for little kids, but every time tyler goes outside, he looks toward the splintered wood and hopes that josh is okay.

sometimes, he’ll sit down next to the tree and he’ll say, “i’ll believe in magic if you make josh okay.”

once, he’s sitting underneath that tree and gazing up into the branches at the sky, and he hears the faintest sound to his right.

when he looks, the panel is sliding to the side, almost as if by itself.

tyler’s immediate thought is ghosts.

when he sees josh, it might as well be a ghost.

“hi,” josh says. instead of just poking his head through, this time, he crawls all the way through into his backyard and sits himself next to tyler underneath the tree.

“where have you _been_?” tyler demands, ignoring the nagging in his skull that tells him he has to believe magic is real because josh is sitting right next to him, void of injuries and bruises. he doesn't even remember the police cars and the ambulance lined up outside josh's house at the moment, he's that surprised.

josh jerks a thumb toward the fence, grinning crookedly. “sorry i haven’t seen you in awhile,” he apologizes. “it was kind of hard with my dad and all.”

tyler’s heart jumps at the mention of josh’s father. “won’t he be mad? you really shouldn’t be here!”

“it’s okay. he’s not around right now.”

tyler doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t question it, because he doesn’t want to send josh away just yet.

“d’you wanna play baseball?” he asks instead, and josh smiles when he nods.

as it turns out, josh is incredibly bad at baseball.

he can barely catch anything and he’s horrendous at throwing, but he laughs along when tyler makes jokes at his expense.

“do you believe in magic?” tyler asks as he prepares to throw the ball at josh. he pauses, lowering his arm to point at the tree when josh nods his head. “my mom used to tell me that was a magic tree.”

“does it work?” josh quips, moving just in time as the baseball that whizzes past his head; tyler stares after him, and josh stares back until they both dissolve into nervous laughter.

“i don’t know,” tyler responds, padding over to the great tree after josh. “i wished you would be okay. and i guess that you are, so maybe it does.”

josh considers the tree sheepishly, scuffing his shoe through the dirt. “well, i wish that my dad would be okay,” he says, after a moment, and tyler stares after him in bewilderment.

“what?” he asks, but josh is dropping to his knees in the dirt, pushing the panel to the side.

he looks at tyler over his shoulder. “i gotta go home,” he mumbles.

“when are you coming back?” tyler asks.

“i don’t know.”

josh slides his way through the fence and it slams shut behind him, severing their connection once again.

 

+

 

unrest writhes in tyler’s gut as he opens the sliding glass door, slipping his way inside. he finds his mother in the kitchen, a cooking book spread across the island as she reads.

tyler claims a seat at the table, giving her the dirtiest look he can manage when she looks at him.

“i saw josh today,” tyler declares.

his mother is deathly quiet in return, her face suddenly contorted into that of terror, like the faces of the people getting murdered on those weird old-time horror movies.

tyler can’t help but feel he’s done something awfully wrong, the nasty look on his face disappearing instantly as he resorts to twisting his hands nervously in his lap.

“what?” she asks, abandoning the book to place both of her hands on the table as she leans in toward him.

“i saw josh today,” he repeats, voice a little squeakier than before.

silence. her mouth opens slightly before shutting, eyebrows drawing together as she gathers her thoughts.

“you mean you saw someone who looked like josh today,” she tries to clarify, but tyler shakes his head softly.

“no, i’m sure it was josh.”

“tyler, where did you see – where did you see _josh_?”

“in the backyard,” tyler mutters, shrinking back into his seat.

his mother taps her fingers on the table. she looks about on the verge of crying, and tyler’s heart twists up fiercely.

“mama?” he croaks, terrified.

“tyler, honey – you can’t have seen josh,” she says, gently as possible, but there are tears glistening in her eyes.

“i saw him today, though,” tyler insists because he did, he did, he was there in the backyard and he looked healthier than he ever did any of the other times tyler had saw him _combined_.

“tyler, josh – josh isn’t – josh is in heaven, baby, you can’t have seen him.”

tyler pauses, uncomprehending. “no, he can’t be,” he mumbles, voice quivering. “i saw him. he’s not in heaven, mama, he’s not dead.”

“it – it must’ve been your imagination, honey,” she says, voice as clear as bells even though there are tears slowly rolling their way down her cheeks.

tyler suddenly feels very scared and very far away.

even though he’s ten, it all starts to click into place.

the day that josh’s father saw him and tyler talking through the fence.

all the sirens and the screaming and the yelling and his mother repeatedly telling him josh is fine every day after that, every time he asked where he went.

josh isn’t fine because josh is dead because josh’s father murdered him.

his father murdered him and couldn’t cover it up because tyler caught him.

even though he caught him, he couldn’t save josh.

that innocent child was killed and it might as well have been tyler’s fault because he couldn’t keep his nose out of other people’s business.

tyler can hear his mother calling his name but he can’t focus. he’s screaming and he’s wailing and he’s kicking as someone tries to pick him up; he didn’t even notice that he’d fallen out of the chair until his mother’s arms were around his waist, cradling him. there’s a dim pain in his side but it’s nothing compared to the anguish in his chest because he killed josh, he killed him, he helped his father _murder_ him.

josh is dead but tyler saw him he saw his ghost there’s no way he could be dead but he’s gone he’s gone his father killed him he beat him to death caved his chest in and watched his son’s blood pour out onto the floor how could he do such a thing tyler saw his ghost tyler saw him he swears oh god oh god oh god he helped his father murder him all because of a soccer ball

he's distantly aware of his mother screaming but the darkness feels so inviting and he allows himself to fall asleep.

he dreams of josh.


	4. you're an angel fallen down, won't you tell us of the clouds?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the body of a broken boy who deserved so much better than what he got. he deserved the world and the moon and the earth and the stars and anything else he could’ve dreamed of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an epilogue, of some sorts.
> 
> major, major warning for child abuse. it's very heavy on the detail.  
> a few brief mentions of suicide as well.
> 
> thanks for reading.  
> i should probably tell you that this was just vent writing because i have a lot on my mind.

his mother explains panic attacks once he calms down from waking up on the kitchen floor, chest heaving as he can’t draw in enough breath, screaming about how he killed josh.

his therapist diagnoses him with anxiety and depression.

“it’s not your fault,” everyone tells him. his father, his mother, his sister, his brothers, his therapist, his teachers, his doctor. it’s not his fault that josh is dead. he didn’t kill josh.

it was just a coincidence.

they tell him that for three years. tyler, it was just a coincidence that you happened to be there in the worst of times. tyler, it was just a coincidence that you heard josh’s father telling him how he was going to kill him.

coincidence, coincidence, coincidence.

it’s not your fault, tyler.

“what happened to josh’s dad?” he asks his mother, once, as she’s standing in the kitchen, elbow-deep in soapy water as she washes dishes.

“he went to prison,” she responds, immediate.

“but for how long?” he persists.

“long enough.”

 

+

 

he’s eleven when he first asks.

he continues to ask for three years. “what happened to josh’s dad?”

there’s something they’re not telling him.

“you’re too young to understand. he went to prison, where all the bad men go.”

 

+

 

he’s thirteen when his mother sits him down at the kitchen table and he _knows_ this is it.

she looks at him sadly and he feels like he should tell her he still has nightmares about josh screaming as he was killed by the person who was supposed to protect him, but he bites his tongue because he doesn’t want to go back to therapy. therapy did nothing to ease the ache in his soul – it just made it easier to ignore the fact that it was always there, omnipresent.

“do you remember josh’s father?” she asks, sitting across the table from him.

he hasn’t had a panic attack in a while, but he feels like he could have one right now.

how could he not remember the man who murdered the boy next door (his _son_ , his own flesh and blood) and made tyler feel like everything was his fault? that, somehow, as a ten year old, he believed that he helped murder josh because he snuck into his backyard to retrieve a soccer ball?

it was all a coincidence, a coincidence, a coincidencecoincidencecoincidence –

“tyler.”

he jerks his head up from where he’s been staring at the table. “yes, i remember him.”

he also remembers how no one told him what had happened to the bastard because he was too young. too young to understand anything other than ‘oh, he went to prison, where all the bad men go’.

“he did go to prison,” his mother tells him, as if she can read his mind. “he just – he didn’t –“

she pauses, folding her hands on top of the table.

“he didn’t serve his time. tyler, he – he killed himself.”

he hung himself with a bed sheet inside his cell because he couldn’t bear the fact that he murdered his own son in cold blood.

tyler is coughing one second, trying to choke down the unbearable guilt.

he’s crying the next.

wet, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he tries desperately to hold himself together.

of course he killed himself. he supposes the ghost of josh was haunting him, too. nothing like seeing the image of your dead son lingering around the cement square you call a home, asking _daddy, why’d you do it, daddy, why’d you kill me_?

the child he beat to death because he needed an escape. he needed a friend and that friend, quite literally, came from the sky in the form of tyler. the child he slammed into a wall repeatedly, head first, screaming _shut up shut up shut up_ as he begged you to let him live.

slammed him against that wall until he stopped moving. until he stopped crying. until his voice faded out into nothingness and all that was left of his head was the violent red, bloody mess spread across the wall like some form of a grotesque horror show.

_oh, tyler, you killed him. therapy didn’t do anything for you because you helped kill that kid that just wanted to be your friend. he said he wasn’t supposed to talk to you, but you persisted, and for that, you got him murdered._

it’s just a coincidence, they all say, but how can something so terrible just be a coincidence? is it a coincidence that tyler keeps seeing his ghost every time he moves his head, lingering in the shadows, watching him?

is it a coincidence that he can still hear that boy scream for his life when he tries to sleep?

“i wish i could’ve saved him,” tyler mumbles as he crumples over the table, sobbing his heart out like he did those three years previous.

 

+

 

_here lies joshua dun_.

his headstone still looks as new as the day it was planted in the cemetery. tyler hasn’t seen it before, but it’s fresher than any of the other headstones surrounding it.

there isn’t a quote. only a date of birth, followed by a date of death, eleven years later.

according to his mother, his father screamed himself hoarse in that prison cell, begging to go to his son’s funeral.

he never did get to go, and he hung himself the day after.

tyler touches the headstone (josh’s headstone) as he sits, cross-legged, on the plow of ground where the mutilated body of a ten year old boy lays six feet under.

“hi,” he says, but josh isn’t there to say hi back this time. “i’m sorry i wasn’t able to save you.”

he went to the big, magnificent oak tree the day before, and he sat underneath it. he wished that josh would be okay, wherever he happened to end up, if there was an afterlife, but he keeps that to himself because he doesn’t want his mother to hear. that’s between him and josh, even if he is _dead_.

the word still tastes bitter on his tongue no matter how many times he says it. dead, dead, dead.

“i don’t know if you can hear me, but i hope you’re doing okay.”

he brushes his fingers across the headstone again before he stands up. _here_ _lies joshua dun_.

the body of a broken boy who deserved so much better than what he got. he deserved the world and the moon and the earth and the stars and anything else he could’ve dreamed of.

his mother calls it fate. tyler calls it bullshit.

he walks back to the car with her by his side, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “who went to the funeral?” he asks, because he would’ve gone, if he knew josh was dead instead of everyone hiding it from him.

“me and your father,” she says in return. “everyone who lives on the same street. a lot of people from around town who read about him in the news.” she swallows. “i’m sorry we didn’t tell you, tyler. we didn’t want to hurt you.”

he pushes down his anger because not knowing caused him a lot more pain than them holding the knowledge out of his reach. he nods solemnly, quietly, dead leaves crackling under his feet as he walks.

 

+

 

tyler can see him.

he’s standing in his backyard.

watching him as he opens his car door.

tyler hesitates.

he raises a hand and he waves.

josh waves back.

he drops to his knees and he slides the loose panel of the fence open, slithering his way through like a snake.

tyler’s tall enough to see over the fence, now, but when he does approach and look over, josh is nowhere in sight.

 

+

 

a month later, the winter of december has trapped columbus into its clutches.

tyler turns fourteen, but nothing really changes.

in january, his family packs up their things as they prepare to move to another town, for tyler’s sake.

as the last suitcase is stuffed into the trunk, tyler sees him, standing next to that magnificent, magical tree.

its branches are bare but tyler finds it as mysteriously beautiful as ever.

his mother calls out to him as he abandons their sides, moving toward him.

“where are you going?” josh asks. he looks older, in a way, almost as if he’s aging alongside tyler, but that’s impossible. ghosts don’t age.

“we’re leaving,” tyler mumbles, his breath puffing out in front of his face.

“when will you be back?”

tyler’s heart breaks just a little further.

“i’m not coming back.”

“oh.”

they stand in silence, and tyler can feel five collective pairs of eyes on the back of his head as he seemingly talks to nothing.

“goodbye, tyler. be safe.”

“goodbye, josh. i hope you’re gonna be okay.”

he doesn’t bother sliding the cracked piece of the fence apart. instead, he’s there for a moment, and then he’s gone; the air feels noticeably colder where tyler stands, but josh ceases to be seen.

tyler presses a hand to the tree’s trunk and he sighs. “i still don’t really believe in magic,” he says honestly. “but please make sure josh is okay from now on. thanks.”

he doesn’t know why he cares so much about the wellbeing of a spirit that can’t quite move on. maybe it’s the lingering thoughts of how he helped his father murder him, even if it’s not true; he can’t shake the guilt, he can’t shake the flashes he sees every now and then in the corner of his vision of josh standing by, watching him.

his mother’s face is a cross between worried and disappointed as he approaches them.

he nestles himself in the back next to zack and jay, and he casts one look at the tree that’s not entirely magical, no matter how hard he tries to believe.

for a second, he swears he can see the same ten year old he met four years before kicking a soccer ball against the fence underneath the oak tree.

when he looks again, josh is gone, but the soccer ball is still there.

**Author's Note:**

> SOCIAL MEDIAS SO WE CAN BE FRIENDS  
> @blurryfced on tumblr  
> @blurryfceds on twitter


End file.
